‘It Has All Gone Too Far’
The state of the 2020 U.S. election is, still, not a settled matter in Georgia. For weeks, conservatives have been filing lawsuits in state and federal courts in an effort to decertify results that gave a victory to Joe Biden. On Twitter, President Trump has been making unsubstantiated claims that the state has been “scammed.”
With Georgia in political turmoil, threats of violence have been made against state election officials, who have been scrambling to recount votes by hand, and against their families.
Still, dozens of prominent national Republicans have stayed silent.
Last week, Gabriel Sterling, a little-known election official in Georgia, did something his party is refusing to do: condemn the president’s claims.
For today’s episode, we called him to ask why he decided to speak up.
Guest: Gabriel Sterling, a Republican official who is the voting system implementation manager in Georgia.
For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Read the latest edition here
Background reading: “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get hurt, someone is going to get shot, someone is going to get killed. And it’s not right,” Mr. Sterling said in a four-minute rebuke of the president last week.The last act of the Trump presidency has taken on the stormy elements of a drama more common to history or literature than a modern White House.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily
- Duration
- 34m
- Broadcast on
- 07 Dec 2020
- Audio Format
- other
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
The state of the 2020 U.S. election is, still, not a settled matter in Georgia. For weeks, conservatives have been filing lawsuits in state and federal courts in an effort to decertify results that gave a victory to Joe Biden. On Twitter, President Trump has been making unsubstantiated claims that the state has been “scammed.”
With Georgia in political turmoil, threats of violence have been made against state election officials, who have been scrambling to recount votes by hand, and against their families.
Still, dozens of prominent national Republicans have stayed silent.
Last week, Gabriel Sterling, a little-known election official in Georgia, did something his party is refusing to do: condemn the president’s claims.
For today’s episode, we called him to ask why he decided to speak up.
Guest: Gabriel Sterling, a Republican official who is the voting system implementation manager in Georgia.
For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Read the latest edition here
Background reading:
- “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get hurt, someone is going to get shot, someone is going to get killed. And it’s not right,” Mr. Sterling said in a four-minute rebuke of the president last week.
- The last act of the Trump presidency has taken on the stormy elements of a drama more common to history or literature than a modern White House.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
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this podcast is supported by TikTok. Sometimes the most interesting discoveries are the ones you weren't looking for. That happens every day on TikTok. A science experiment can spark a whole new interest. A recipe you stumble upon can become a meal you make for the people you love, and a restaurant you've never heard of might become your new favorite spot. That's the thing about TikTok. Follow your curiosity and see where it leads. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Wabaro. This is A Daily. For four minutes and 41 seconds last week, a little known Republican official in Georgia came forward and said what dozens of national Republicans have so far been unwilling to say about the president's efforts to overturn the results of the election. Today, a conversation with that official, Gabriel Sterling. It's Monday, December 7th. Mr. Sterling? Yes. Can you hear me? How are you, sir? I am running around like a one arm paper hanger. How about y'all? I don't think I know that reference. Well, think about it. If you're hanging wallpaper, one arm, it's very difficult. Well, let's jump in. We really appreciate you making time for us. So thank you for doing this. So I want to start by asking you to describe your job and how that job fits into the Georgia election system. Well, it was sort of a new thing because after really 20 years, or I guess 18 years, we replaced our old electronic based voting system, which was a no paper system, where you'd go to a touch screen, you'd cast your vote and that touch screen would hold the tabulation with a memory card. But there was no paper trail. And as we saw moving forward after 2016, 2018, internally, the state of Georgia, it was decided we need to move to a paper-based system. And my job was really to kind of herd the cats of launching a system across 159 counties of a brand new technology with a lot more pieces and parts with a paper ballot component and get it all done. And we were trying, we were struggling to find any project manager for this. Every engineering firm, every company we went to, basically, we could have paid them a half a million dollars. And they said, lawyers like, no, reputational risk is too high. I mean, we get one lawsuit, and we lose the money and we lose the power of our brand. So we couldn't anybody to do it. And finally, internally, I said, Gabe, you've been running this thing for essentially a year anyway. You know all the ins and outs too late to get somebody new. So why don't we get somebody hired to do your other stuff as a contractor? And you go on to be the project manager for this. And that's how I became the voting system implementation manager. Got it. And just to be clear about this new system and this new role that you were in, following issues with the voting process and claims of voter fraud in Georgia in 2016 and 2018, it was all intended to be building up to a secure and hopefully well-run 2020 election. And your job, working from within Georgia's office of the Secretary of State, was essentially to be the guy that made sure everything was in place and that it all worked. Yes, that's essentially end of the day, boiling it down like good journalists do. You got it. I accept that praise. And Georgia's Secretary of State is a Republican. Are you a Republican as well? Yes, lifelong. And may I presume then that as a Republican, you are a supporter of the president, you have voted for the president? I did vote for the president at this time. I've voted for him before. I mean, I hate talking about who I voted for. I mean, I'm a government functionary, but at this point in this role, you can't avoid that. But yes, I did vote for him. So as a Republican and as someone who supports the president in general, I wonder how you felt when your state, this longtime Republican stronghold, became so central to the outcome of this election and ultimately flipped blue for the first time since, I think it was 1992. I knew, I've been around this for a long time. I knew that it was, I mean, let's face it, in 2018, Stacey Abrams came within 55,000 votes of defeating Brian Kemp for governor. So we saw it coming in that the people who were so shocked by this are people who
Transcription truncated.
The state of the 2020 U.S. election is, still, not a settled matter in Georgia. For weeks, conservatives have been filing lawsuits in state and federal courts in an effort to decertify results that gave a victory to Joe Biden. On Twitter, President Trump has been making unsubstantiated claims that the state has been “scammed.”
With Georgia in political turmoil, threats of violence have been made against state election officials, who have been scrambling to recount votes by hand, and against their families.
Still, dozens of prominent national Republicans have stayed silent.
Last week, Gabriel Sterling, a little-known election official in Georgia, did something his party is refusing to do: condemn the president’s claims.
For today’s episode, we called him to ask why he decided to speak up.
Guest: Gabriel Sterling, a Republican official who is the voting system implementation manager in Georgia.
For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Read the latest edition here
Background reading: “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get hurt, someone is going to get shot, someone is going to get killed. And it’s not right,” Mr. Sterling said in a four-minute rebuke of the president last week.The last act of the Trump presidency has taken on the stormy elements of a drama more common to history or literature than a modern White House.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily